


In the Blood

by Acts_of_Tekla



Series: TTSS_Kink Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Mutants, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Community: ttss_kink, Drabble Collection, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acts_of_Tekla/pseuds/Acts_of_Tekla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mutant superpowers aren't always as useful as it seems they should be.</p>
<p>Or, five mutant powers the Circus folk never had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Blood

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on the TTSS Kink meme

**1\. Control**

A secret organization attracted those who had grown up keeping secrets – homosexuals, children of alcoholics…mutants.

Some would call it unwise to purposely recruit people who, from the beginning, would have to lie to the organization they served to keep their jobs, but the risk was more than made up by recruits arriving at the Nursery already knowing how to hide secrets that lives depended on. Control himself never recommended anyone who revealed their secrets to others through anything less than the very deepest background check.

It was, after all, the role of the spy master alone to know _everybody’s_ secrets.

 

**2\. Ricki Tarr**

The response from London Station was such a blatant stall that Ricki didn’t even bother to reply, just bolted to grab Irina and get the hell out. He’d still been too late. When he saw she was gone, he snapped his fingers once (one minute back), twice (two minutes), and again and again until the nausea and dizziness became too much and he passed out rather spectacularly in Thessinger’s office barely ten minutes before he’d originally left. It was further than he’d even _tried_ to snap back in time since he was a teenager, and it still wasn’t nearly enough.

 

**3\. Peter Guillam**

Until his network was burned, Peter Guillam had been far more noteworthy for his pedigree than his talent or résumé. He was a competent field agent and agent runner, but the relevant personnel had expected that he would be rolled up along with everyone else. They certainly hadn’t expected him to slip their net in Morocco, and then _keep_ slipping it until they received word that he’d arrived in London without having drawn the notice of a single border patrol or immigration official.

As far as Peter was concerned, nobody needed to know that he couldn’t be seen at all.

 

**4\. Prideaux**

They were calling him “Eagle Eyes” within the first month of training, and though the nickname didn’t stick, his reputation did. It wasn’t just his shooting scores (though his sniping record remained unbeaten), but his unparalleled ability to track a man for miles through dense forest, to spot a tail on a crowded street, and to memorize an upside-down list of names on a bureaucrat’s desk from twenty feet away when the very man sitting there had to squint to make it out.

The only time he’d disbelieved his eagle eyes was when they showed him his best friend’s lie.

 

**5\. Karla**

As a young man, he’d thought that no secret could be kept from him. He hadn’t been wrong, but his unique abilities weren’t the only reason he excelled in the great game of secrets. After all, it had been in the course of that game that he’d discovered people who could not only shield their thoughts, but disguise them. His true gift was in reading _people_.

Smiley thought him a fanatic for returning to Russia, but he knew his superiors better than they knew themselves, and there was no risk in a game in which he held all the pieces.

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped to convey everyone's powers in the drabbles, but just in case:  
> Control - might be telepathic, might be mundane  
> Ricki Tarr - travel one minute back in time by snapping his fingers  
> Peter Guillam - invisibility  
> Jim Prideaux - telescopic vision  
> Karla - telepathy, not that he needs it  
> Smiley - no superpowers


End file.
